The African National Congress Youth (ANCYL) League handed a memorandum of demands to the National Credit Regulator in Johannesburg on Wednesday in a protest against the blacklisting of youth by credit bureaux.
ANCYL president Fikile Mbalula handed the memorandum to three officials of the National Credit Regulator and said the blacklisting of the youth was unfair to the students and unemployed of the country.
”We demand that credit institutions should grant amnesty in order to ease the process for the youth to have access to credit and loans,” said Doctor Tshwale, a member of ANCYL’s national executive.
”It is part of our campaign to highlight the plight of the unemployed youth and raise the discussion on youth development in the country.”
He said the majority of the young people blacklisted were unemployed and much of the debt was related to study loans.
The memorandum included the following demands:
- That unemployed youths must not be blacklisted and that those currently blacklisted must be removed from the list.
- People still furthering their skills-development studies must under no circumstances be blacklisted from registering with any institution.
- Unemployed graduates should not be blacklisted before they get employed or start earning an income through self initiatives on business ventures.
- Young entrepreneurs must be afforded capital on the basis of their business plans and that any debts owing not related to business ventures must not be used against them.
- The credit regulator must educate the youth against the dangers of reckless credit lending and borrowing.
- It must work out a plan in conjunction with the credit-granting institutions and the credit bureaux that would commit financial institutions in general to be biased towards development funding.
- The regulator must provide information to the general public on the avenues they may take in the event of encountering credit difficulties, including being blacklisted unfairly.
Chief operations officer of the National Credit Regulator, Nomsa Motshegare, said the contents of the memorandum would be addressed to the best of the regulator’s ability.
”We will endeavour to address the issues raised by the Youth League in its memorandum, but most importantly we encourage the league to be active participants in the public comments process on draft regulations pertaining to Section 73 of the National Credit Act, commonly referred to as credit bureaux data-cleansing provisions.”
The march showed that the league supported the implementation of the Act and wished to play an active role in ensuring that the South African credit market was transformed.
”Delivering our mandate becomes significantly easier with the support and cooperation of stakeholders such as the ANCYL,” said Motshegare.
One of the protesters, Thulane Mncube (28) an electrician graduate who recently lost his job, said: ”Since I am unemployed I can’t pay my debts.”
A 25-year-old graduate who wanted to remain anonymous said he was blacklisted by Wits University after he initially failed to pay R1 000 for his studies. ”I can’t buy a car, a house and can’t get a contract phone,” he said.
He said the university would only remove his name in January next year, even though he had paid the debt in April already. — Sapa